Grand Opening: U3 in Kutztown heals mind, body, spirit

Three ministers on a path to serve others met at a crossroad in Kutztown and together forged a business of wellness, healing the mind, body, and spirit.

Owners Rebecca Sheidy-Henninger,Rev. Matthew F. Thomas,and Elizabeth “EJ” Jackson celebrated the Grand Opening of U3, pronounced U-Cubed, on Nov. 3. The holistic based organization will offer workshops, support groups and classes to groups or to individuals with an emphasis placed on creating a calm and safe environment.

“We’re trying to be as diverse as possible,” said Thomas.

“It’s all different things. We have some massage people that we talked to that are going to come,” said Sheidy-Henninger.

Day read from Gerlach’s note, “The unique nature of U3 along with your history of accomplishment and entrepreneurial spirit will no doubt enable you and your partners to achieve tremendous success as you serve the holistic needs of the Kutztown community and beyond.”

“We do give funding to counties for social services and to help people,” said Day.“The idea is if we help people we help the entire community. We’re only as strong as our weakest link as a community and it sounds like this operation is going to attack that with multiple different things.”

“It provides alternatives; it is the place for people to come to learn how to take themselves out of the hecticness of the world right now and carve out their own little space no matter where they are,” said Jen Anderson-Wenger, friend and attendee.

“To me traditionalist is holistic. It’s the ways of the old; the way people used to heal themselves years ago, you know, like before modern medicine,” said Sherri Keppley, a long-time friend of Matt and Rebecca.

Rebecca Sheidy-Henninger, is a licensed social worker certified in trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy with specialization in treatment of PTSD. She is also trained in eco-systemic structural family therapy. Sheidy-Henninger had been preparing the paperwork to begin her own private practice in Kutztown when she saw a friend’s post on Facebook. Rev. Matthew F. Thomas was looking for an office to continue his work as a Reiki master, teacher, minister, and psychic artist.

“Matt was doing Reiki and I was doing mental health, mostly trauma counseling with kids, and I wanted to find a way to make the two things work. I always said to him if you ever decide you want to get an office, call me,” said Sheidy-Henninger.

Thomas had suffered an accident that left him unable to endure physical labor for any length of time so he needed to reinvent himself.

“I took all of the talents I have, make-up artist, skin care, holistic healing, and I put it all on a website and started consulting,” said Thomas. “I said this isn’t really working out and so I needed an office.”

Thomas’ conventional skill is as an esthetician or licensed skin care specialist. As a team member, he deals as a minister and holistic healer with the things people cannot see; the things that medicine and science does not know about yet. He deals in things that are based in legend and superstition, but have a very real effect on your spirituality and your psyche and your emotional well being, he said.

“All of these things are coming into play in our world today with the end of the world, the Mayans, rapture, this, that, and the other thing and its freaking people out; they don’t know what to think,” said Thomas.

Thomas pulled a friend, Elizabeth “EJ” Jackson, into the plan because of her work as a certified addictions counselor, a certified clinical supervisor, and as a clinical hypnotist. Jackson also hosts a community outreach program on BCTV entitled, “Some Days You’re the Windshield...Some Days You’re the Bug.” Her show is on the third Monday of every month at 9 p.m. She is a certified MBSR (mindfulness based stress reduction) trainer and a certified master NLP (neuro linguistic programming) practitioner.

“You are in a trance,” said Jackson. “Actually we’re in a trance most of the time throughout the day. Our subconscious is in charge about 90-95 percent of the time.”

Jackson’s passion is training clinicians to work with not just traditional forms of treatment, but with newer recognized techniques such as meridian tapping and changing your story through visualization and co-creating in your mind what you need to do. She recently attended training on cyber addiction.

“I feel personally that this is a spirituality issue and we’ve been treating the symptoms rather than getting down to the core and getting into the subconscious and actually having the healing happen,” said Jackson.

Jackson will be holding a weekend of workshops limited to 20 women in January. She will be helping them get rid of all the toxic stuff and bring up all the good new stuff.

One of the practitioners currently on board is freelance make-up artistMaleeva F. Epperson, of Kutztown. She was offered an associate position with U3 after networking with Matt through Facebook. As a make-up artist for film and television, Epperson, works with an exclusive celebrity skin care cosmetic line.